Out Loud: A Memoir - From the most brilliant and audacious choreographer of our time, the exuberant tale of a young dancer8217s rise to the pinnacle of the performing arts world, and the triumphs and perils of creating work on his own terms and staying true to himselfBefore Mark Morris became 8220the most successful and influential choreographer alive8221 (The New York Times), he was a sixyearold in Seattle cramming his feet into Tupperware glasses so that he could practice walking on pointe Often the only boy in the dance studio, he was called a sissy, a term he wore like a badge of honor He was unlike anyone else, deeply gifted and spirited Moving to New York at 19, he arrived to one of the great booms of dance in America Audiences in 1976 had the luxury of Merce Cunningham8217s finest experiments with time and space, of Twyla Tharp8217s virtuosity, and Lucinda Childs genius Morris was flat broke but found a group of likeminded artists that danced together, travelled together, slept together No one wanted to break the spell or miss a thing, because 8220if you missed anything, you missed everything8221 This collective, led by Morris8217 fiercely original vision, became the famed Mark Morris Dance Group Suddenly, Morris was making a fast ascent Celebrated by The New Yorker8217s critic as one of the great young talents, an androgynous beauty in the vein of Michelangelo8217s David, he and his company had arrived Collaborations with the likes of Mikhail Baryshnikov, YoYo Ma, Lou Harrison, and Howard Hodgkin followed And so did controversy: from the circus of his tenure at La Monnaie in Belgium to his work on the biggest flop in Broadway history But through the ReaganBush era, the worst of the AIDS epidemic, through rehearsal squabbles and backstage intrigues, Morris emerged as one of the great visionaries of modern dance, a force of nature with a dedication to beauty and a love of the body, an artist as joyful as he is provocative Out Loud is the bighearted and outspoken story of a man as formidable on the page as he is on the boards With unusual candor and disarming wit, Morris8217 memoir captures the life of a performer who broke the mold, a brilliant maverick who found his home in the collective and liberating world of music and dance